Monitoring fundamentals with Prometheus: observability concepts, Prometheus architecture and instrumentation, PromQL querying, and alerting and dashboarding practice.
CNCF does not publish numeric exam codes — PCA is the common abbreviation.
Prometheus Certified Associate is CNCF's associate-level devops & sre certification, referred to across the industry by the shorthand PCA. The exam runs for 1 hour 30 minutes and presents up to 60 questions, with a pass mark of 75%. It costs US$250 at the standard rate.
CNCF publishes the syllabus as 5 weighted domains. PromQL carries the most weight at 28%, and the three largest domains together account for roughly 66% of the scored content — worth knowing before you decide where study time goes.
Confirm these details on the official CNCF page before booking — vendors adjust format and pricing without notice.
Some forms include unscored trial questions
Standard rate, before local taxes
The published exam guide for PCA, in the vendor's own order.
01Observability Concepts
18%02Prometheus Fundamentals
20%03PromQL
28%04Instrumentation and Exporters
16%05Alerting and Dashboarding
18%Familiarity with monitoring concepts.
Associate level — Role-based credentials for practitioners with hands-on experience.
This is a complete PCA exam guide, but a practice bank is not available yet. We keep the guide published because the format, weighted domains and official sources remain useful when planning your study.
The syllabus breakdown above is the most useful study plan available either way: work through the domains in weight order.
CNCF lists up to 60 questions, to be completed in 1 hour 30 minutes. Question counts can vary slightly between exam forms, and unscored trial questions are sometimes included.
75%. Confirm the current figure on the official exam page before booking, as vendors adjust cut scores when an exam form is refreshed.
The standard price is US$250. Local pricing, taxes and any retake policy vary by region, so check the official page for the figure that applies to you.
Familiarity with monitoring concepts.
The exam guide covers Observability Concepts, Prometheus Fundamentals, PromQL, Instrumentation and Exporters and Alerting and Dashboarding. The full weighted breakdown is listed above.